Understanding optical communications

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Michael Langford

Discusses technical and artistic aspects of photography such as camera operation, darkroom procedures, and picture composition.

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Harold B. Segel

"In Body Ascendant, Harold Segel shows how obsession with physical culture resonated widely through the modernist movement and traces its profound influence on the arts in the early twentieth century. Segel examines the emergence of modern dance and its impact on virtually all the other arts. He describes the shift from speech to gesture in modern drama and the revival of serious artistic interest in pantomime. And he shows how bold attempts to revitalize literary language paralleled a new emphasis on the direct experience of the writer." "Characterizing the modernist man of letters as a self-styled man of action, Segel reviews the careers of such writers as Gabriele D'Annunzio, F.T. Marinetti, Nikolai Gumilyov, Ernst Junger, Ernest Hemingway, Henry de Montherlant, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He offers a broad overview of the various manifestations of the modernist preoccupation with physicality, including the disparagement of Christianity and Judaism for their focus on spiritual life. He clearly establishes the disturbing compatibility between the era's artistic and athletic celebration of body and the eventual rise of totalitarian nationalism and racism. The dark side of the Nazi emphasis on physical perfection as essential to ideal Germanness, Segel notes, was the consistent portrayal of the Jew as physically and racially inferior."--Jacket. In Body Ascendant, Harold Segel shows how obsession with physical culture resonated widely through the modernist movement and traces its profound influence on the arts in the early twentieth century. Segel examines the emergence of modern dance and its impact on virtually all the other arts. He describes the shift from speech to gesture in modern drama and the revival of serious artistic interest in pantomime. And he shows how bold attempts to revitalize literary language paralleled a new emphasis on the direct experience of the writer. Characterizing the modernist man of letters as a self-styled man of action, Segel reviews the careers of such writers as Gabriele D'Annunzio, F. T. Marinetti, Nikolai Gumilyov, Ernst Junger, Ernest Hemingway, Henry de Montherlant, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He offers a broad overview of the various manifestations of the modernist preoccupation with physicality, including the disparagement of Christianity and Judaism for their focus on spiritual life. He clearly establishes the disturbing compatibility between the era's artistic and athletic celebration of body and the eventual rise of totalitarian nationalism and racism. The dark side of the Nazi emphasis on physical perfection as essential to ideal Germanness, Segel notes, was the consistent portrayal of the Jew as physically and racially inferior.

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Valerie Steele and Jennifer Park

"From its origins in the eighteenth-century literature of terror to its contemporary manifestations in vampire fiction, cinema, and art, the gothic has embraced the powers of horror and the erotic macabre. "Gothic" is an epithet with a strange history - evoking images of death, destruction, and decay. Ironically, its negative connotations have made the gothic an ideal symbol of rebellion for a wide range of cultural outsiders. This gorgeous book is the first in-depth study of the gothic influence on fashion." "Popularly associated with black-clad teenagers and rock musicians, gothic fashion encompasses not only subcultural styles (from old-school goth to cyber-goth and beyond) but also high fashion by such designers as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano of Christian Dior, Rick Owens, Olivier Theyskens, and Yohji Yamamoto. Fashion photographers, such as Scan Ellis and Eugenio Recuenco, have also drawn on the visual vocabulary of the gothic to convey narratives of dark glamour. As the text and lavish illustrations in this book suggest, gothic fashion has deep cultural roots that give it an enduring potency." "Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)."--Jacket.

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Robert Ward

"Broke, recently divorced, and a total deadbeat, Bob Wells has spent his life as a psychiatrist only doing good in the world. When one of his patients with clear paranoid delusions starts to lose a grip, Bob has no choice but to intervene. Emile Bardan is haunted by demons, and he believes that someone is trying to steal his most prized possesion, the legendeary Mask of Utu. Bob thinks it's all part of Emile's imagination until he discovers that Emile is telling the truth and that the mask is worth millions. It's Bob who may actually be the one losing his grip. He's tired of helping people for nothing, tired of being treated like dirt-and while he may have met the girl of his dreams, he doesn't want to lose her because he can't take care of her. There is only one thing to do: Bob is going to steal the mask himself. But doing so may mean making the biggest mistake of all, as he proceeds down a path into a dark abyss from which there is no return."--Publisher description.